When online surveys first became a viable product in the late 1990's, they were new and exciting for consumers. Even though the surveys were laid out in a very plain, text-heavy format, people enjoyed answering them; they answered them carefully and honestly, and they could be counted on to complete most of the surveys that were sent to them. Even better, consumers responded with minimal, if any, incentives.
The success of online surveys, brought about by the decreased cost and increased speed associated with them, led to a saturation in the marketplace, with each supplier vying for the attention of the same survey responders. This saturation led to some differentiation in the marketplace whereby some suppliers offered more valuable incentive's, others offered more engaging and user friendly surveys, and still others simply failed to keep up with the times and continued to provide ‘old style’ surveys.
The consequences of this were not advantageous to the marketing research industry. Survey responders, weary of the glut in the marketplace, now choose which surveys they will answer based on the incentive offered or style of survey. Those who desire cash or prizes seek out those suppliers. Those who desire engaging surveys seek out those suppliers. Significantly, many have given up on surveys because the marketing research industry failed to meet their needs for incentives and providing engaging surveys. Survey return rates have declined drastically over the last few years and conferences have sprung up in the attempt to find solutions to the low return rates.
Marketing research businesses often employ specific standardized processes for seeking out, compiling, analyzing, and presenting data. Marketing research typically follows a set series of processes for determining from where data can be collected and from where it will actually be collected. Common quantitative methods for compiling data include surveys, whether online or offline, structured interviews, and physical or technical measurements. Common qualitative methods for compiling data include participant observation, unstructured interviews, and focus groups. Both qualitative and quantitative research then uses various processes for analyzing data, which may be simple descriptive statistics such as frequency distributions or means but may also be more complicated statistics such as regression and conjoint analysis. Again, in both qualitative and quantitative cases, after completing any analyses, summaries and conclusions are prepared to explain the research findings. The desired conclusion of these studies, regardless of the methods and processes used, is to usually identify how consumers feel about specific products, whether they like the products, whether they plan to buy more of them, whether they like the taste or look or feel or the product, and various other attributes that will assist the business in better meeting the needs of the consumer.
Over the last few years, new online survey research approaches have been implemented. The internet is a constantly expanding database containing vast quantities of information about any conceivable topic. Consumer focused businesses have websites that share information about their products and services. With the advent of web 2.0, those websites now include user forums or message boards that allow consumers to ask questions, offer praise or critiques, or simply post their personal opinions about the business and their products. Individuals also share information via their own personal webpages. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Wordpress, YouTube, and Flickr allow individuals to share information with friends, family, colleagues and strangers. This information is usually of a personal nature, but may include product and services information as well.
The internet has essentially become a product database containing all possible points of view about every person, product, service, and brand that exists. Today, marketing researchers are taking advantage of this readily available information, and analyzing and packaging it in a format usable to brands.
Website analytics techniques are often used to monitor online traffic. Website analytics techniques typically monitor websites in terms of how many visitors they receive, how often those visitors happen to arrive there, where those visitors came from and where they are going, what search terms brought them to the site, and how long they stay on the site. These sites inform business about their website's popularity in comparison to their immediate competitors, and in comparison to the internet in general. They may also monitor specific brands over the internet in terms of number of mentions, comments, and replies. Website analytics services can be used to inform clients about whether there is a lot of chatter and commotion related to their products. Usually, the end goal is to gather already existing internet data and summarize it so that clients know where and how many people are talking about their products.